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JSU Football makes history with female Kicker, Leilani Armenta

By Dr. Ivory Phillips

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SPORTS

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September 28, 2023

Leilani Armenta (Photo: Chesha Lewis)

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Leilani Armenta came to Jackson State University to play soccer, but made history as a kicker on the football team when she entered Saturday’s game against Bethune-Cookman (JSU’s opening home game). As an on-field kicker, she became thefirst female player for the JSU Tigers. Adding history to history, however, she is also the first female to play on a Division One HBCU football team.

Armenta hails from Ventura, California, graduating from Saint Bonaventure High School. For her high school team, she scored on 98 out of 105 extra point attempts and on 5 out of 5 field goals as a kicker. She, nevertheless, had been out of the kicking game since that time, due to leg injuries.

Despite her absence from the field for so long, based upon her past record and how she had performed in practice, the freshman was called upon to handle the duty of place kicker on the collegiate level. Coach T.C. Taylor turned to her in the absence of injured kicker, Gerardo Baeza. Although he did not call upon her to attempt any extra points and left the punting duties to Matt Noll, he left the kick-offs in her hands.

Many JSU fans are now anxiously praying for her development and for Baeza’s return from his injuries. History has been made. Now it is on with winning the SWAC championship.

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Author

Dr. Ivory Phillips

Ivory Phillips was born in Rosedale Mississippi in the Summer of ‘42. He attended and graduated from what was then Rosedale Negro High School in 1960. From there he went to Jackson State University on an academic scholarship and graduated in 1964 with a B.S. in Social Science Education. After years of teaching and graduate studies, Phillips returned to JSU in the Fall of 1971, got married, raised a family and spent the next 44 years teaching social sciences there. In the meantime, he served as Chairman of the Department of Social Science Education, Faculty Senate President, and Dean of the College of Education and Human Development. While doing so, he tried to make it a practice to keep his teaching lively and truthful with true-to-life examples and personally developed material.

In addition to the work on the campus, he became involved in numerous community activities. Among them was editorial writing for the Jackson Advocate, consulting on the Ayers higher education discrimination case, coaching youth soccer teams, two of which won state championships, working on political campaigns, and supporting Black liberation struggles, including the Republic of New Africa, the All-Peoples Revolutionary Party, Mississippi Alliance of State Employees, and the development of a Black Community Political Convention.

In many ways these activities converge as can be detected from his writings in the Jackson Advocate. Over the years those writings covered history, politics, economics, education, sports, religion, culture and sociology, all from the perspective of Black people in Jackson, Mississippi, America, and the world.

Obviously, these have kept him beyond busy. Yet, in his spare time, he loved listening to Black music, playing with his grandchildren, making others laugh, and being helpful to others.

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